EVE General Discussion

But this is the problem, it's not supposed to be an incentive to move out of NPC corps. People like Feyd see any improvement to the game that NPC players will also receive as an attack on risk, laughably with most of them be as risk averse as most carebears. If it were up to them NPC players games would be frozen, receiving no updates until they leave the NPC corps. What they refuse to accept is that NPC corps are a valid part of the game and those players can and will benefit from broad improvements to the game like this. The fear of them benefiting along with other players is certainly no reason to halt progress.

But you wouldn't have all the benefits, and you know it.

No one ever mentions how suicide ganking got buffed for small ships back in 2013,
with the change of sentry damage projection and the change to the faction police spawn-rate and movement.

That buff translated in less cost and less SP needed for more damage until the destroyer pops.

All you would accomplish by preventing highsec NPC corp characters from using in-game bundling of social tools like calendars, mailing lists, chat channels and such is further their isolation, limit their opportunities to try new things, and inhibit the creation of new social connections within the playerbase.

There are significant hurdles to joining a player corp. (I am reminded again of a comment by a CSM 9 member, while discussing the friendly-fire toggle during one of their session, on how he was in charge of a corp's recruitment process and it would take up to six months on their side to vet applicants.) The barriers to joining these proposed social groups are minimal - a perfect avenue for new players, or solitary vet players, to ease in to social activities within EVE and later, perhaps, if the they find it to their liking, joining a more formalized player corp with greater risk but the potential for greater rewards.

Wait, why should players who are not willing to play eve fully be in entitled to features and perks that was once reserved for those who engaged and participated in the game (players corps)?

dont take this wrong, but i support added social features that allows players particular those in player corps to group up and have a club of corps ie: agony unleash join red and then have eve uni join blue , or a save our alliance club.

but why should those of us who choose not to engage get more perks and features ?

as it stands npc corp is pretty much perfect . it allows us to play eve with minimized risk and or obligations while keeping us from experiencing the bigger game overall.

if you want the whole eve experience then setup or join a corp.

features that enhance the player corps is whats needed not features that allow the players to bypass player corps.

player corps are a fundamental building block of the eve on line game play. undermining this will do more harm to the game then you can imagine.

alot of what has been discussed here is a means to bypass and not participate in player corps.

that is just wrong.

really think some should take a step back and rethink what some of the suggestions here regarding to social corp should mean.

it should not be in any way shape or form a way for npc corp players to engage in the richer side of eve game play .

in short as long as social corps is a buff to player corps does not benefit npc corp players, and corp lite is flushed down the toilet then their is nothing wrong with social corps.

Allowing npc corp players further access to eve elements while bypassing player corps is a misstep that needs to be avoided.

Relative isolation, not complete isolation. Do not confuse the 2 as they are not the same. And there are isolating elements in group socialization that some corp mechanics help resolve. Mainly in the form of being more visible, automatic entry into default chat channels and corp mailing lists as well as shared resources like bookmarks/fleet adverts/etc.

This is relatively isolating in that it creates effort barriers to shared activity.

Also no one contributes to the games premise more than any other as the premise is to create your own goals and pursue them to the best of your ability. For some, NPC corps are the best tool to that end, but at the same time that shouldn't make anyone a second class citizen when it comes to social tools access.

Isn't it the responsibility of players to make player run corps better? The state of player corps is a direct result of the actions and practices of players as they exist in game. Not an idealized notion or metaphysical thought exercise, but what players do in practice.

It is that same behavior that resulted in changes to intercorp agression. It is that same behavior that has the developers entertaining the notion of social corps.

Ideally they wouldn't be necessary because the eve community would produce such a great player corp experience. While there are very good corps out there, there are probably more that exist to exploit members, place serious restrictions on how someone spends their gametime (what to fly, what to train, what to do when they log on), and being in a player corp can exponentially increase a player's risk for little personal gain (wardecs) or any number of qualities that just make the proposition unattractive for many. But again if it is unattractive, it is up to players to make it more attractive.

I personally love this new "custodial" philosophy of making the sandbox less of a litterbox. This is a perfect way of dealing with the getting players flying together and interacting. i still don't see how any player that has good experiences with a group from a social corp would hesitate to form a player corp with those people when they are ready. Instead of spending weeks or months going through a recruiting process that could wash out, players can be actively jumping into social activity from day 1 in a more accessible in way than what is currently available.

If the problem is getting players playing together this is a good approach. If the problem is how to get player to engage me in EVE the way that I would like and use a scorched earth approach to force them into my killzones, then maybe not.

I again say if player corps struggle to get members out of social corps, good. It will mean that the leadership in player corps will have to incentivize people flying under them. Recruitment becomes more active and a single player's value increases to something more than meat for the grinder, another dope to tax, or cannon fodder. Why? because if you treat them as such they can leave your corp and still have options for playing with others and finding a group they as an EVE subscriber will enjoy spending their time flying, mining, pewing, or whatever with.

Again, good for the game in my opinion.

Where did we get stuck on the idea that Societies would be for npc folks only?

Special interest groups such as veteran support is cross corp, cross the entire game.

Language groups . . . ditto

This is about enhancing the social fabric of the entire game.

m

It's not an argument that they would be for NPC people only, but rather that certain people don't want NPC people in them specifically.

Aralyn, I can see your point about how people have a misconception that corps are not for casual players. Lucas seems to be arguing that these social groups would encourage people to participate and make them more receptive to joining Corps. Both of these arguments make sense to me.



I think the term "Social Corp" is maybe not a good term, but it does make a lot of people apprehensive about devaluing Player Corps. Instead, let me ask some User Interface related questions, and see if anyone agrees:

1. Shouldn't I be able to share a collection of fits with anyone I want? I don't mean this 20th century dragging each fit from the Windows 95 fitting window and dragging it somewhere, or stuffing them in an MOTD. I mean a CCP designed way to share a *package* of fits, even when I'm offline?

2. Shouldn't I be able to share a collection of bookmarks with anyone? Why are we dragging these things into the cargo bay in a game that is 12 years in the making? If a lot of people share deep safes and then blap each other because the safes are compromised, then that's more content isn't it? What do we possibly have to gain by this UI complexity?

3. Shouldn't I have better email tools? Why can't we do a simple search of our email? Why is mailing list management like playing with an AOL settings widget circa 1990s? Why does mail older than 3-4 months become totally inaccessible?

4. Shouldn't we have a way to advertise channels like we do corps? We *have* communities in EVE.. Anti-Ganking, WGoE, the radio channels, the Corp Public channels (useful in a large alliance like mine). Why is advertisement limited to MoTDs of existing channels or the clunky email system?

5. Shouldn't I be able to share a standings list? Why can't multiple ganking groups instantly mirror each other's anti-gank KoS list? Is it deliberate to hamper information sharing of this nature? What possible gameplay benefit does this UI limitation have?



If you agree with this list, and you should because we are no longer in the 20th century and we should not find *difficult* UIs to be sexy or necessary, then you agree with the proposal.

I've covered every item in Eli's proposed list (post #360) with the exception of a shared kill list. I think zKillboard can serve this function just fine (and better than anything UI based than CCP can provide). CREST should absolutely be the solution here.



In many ways, the EVE UI is *still* pathologically allergic to information sharing. I still have to run clunky batch files to mirror settings across alts. I have to copy-paste links into secret chat channels to mirror notes between alts. I have to click and drag hundreds of things just to share basic information with rookies in Brave Dojo. The game is so heavily dependent on information, and it is frustratingly difficult to share it a lot of the time.



This proposal is not about Player Corps at all. This has nothing to do with NPC Corps, which I personally think should be stripped of wardec immunity. The whole thing is about much needed and long overdue UI improvements.